Law Rustlers

Excerpt: 'Me and “Hashknife” Hartley sets there on our broncs and spells out the old sign, just like it was the first time we ever seen it. The good Lord only knows why we’re back at the old sign. Willer Crick don’t mean nothing to us. Glory Sillman lives, or did live, on Willer Crick, but her name ain’t never figured in any of our conversations since the day we fogged away from Willer Crick. We kinda left that part of the range in a hurry that day; left a surprised bunch of folks watching our dust, while a couple of enterprising bad-men went home to get patched up and another bunch throwing lead at the wrong parties, just because said parties had a gray and a roan horse. No, Willer Crick has been a closed incident to us. Not that we’re silent folks, ’cause we ain’t. I can talk the bark off a greasewood, and Hashknife Hartley—man, he’s a conversationalist. It’s kinda funny that we never talked about the Willer Crick folks, ’cause they sure are worth talking about. Sol Vane, who does the lawin’ for the Crick, Jim Sillman, one of the Council of Three, old Ebenezer Godfrey—they’re one goshawful layout. Of course Ebenezer Godfrey is dead. Jim Albright and Pete Godfrey, his illegal heirs, are dead, we think, but there’s a plenty of that misguided tribe left. Ebenezer was killed by Pete and Jim, ’cause the old man wouldn’t die soon enough for one of them to get visible means of support, in order to marry Glory. The old man was hard-boiled enough to hang on to life until he could will everything he owned to me and Hashknife. Willer Crick, being a closed corporation, didn’t accept me and Hashknife to any great extent.'